ADs don't want your freedom, ADs don't want to play around

[BogRollBOGOF]

🎵 Every day I hear a different story
People sayin' that you’re no good for me
Saw your lover with another
And she’s making a fool of you, oh

🎵 If you love me baby, you'd deny it
But you laugh and tell me I should try it
Tell me I’m a baby, and I don't understand

Go Wham!

Waitrose shoppers being ultra cautious would certainly support the class theory.

Good for you going to the library. That was brave of you. Did you have to book to go? At ours, we still do.

No, they've recently stopped that. We can reserve books again too, which was mainly how I selected books, and the reason that I went in as I'd reserved something online.

Waitrose might be age-related too, though there were also older non-masked people in the market.

It's the smaller shops I tend to avoid as you don't know the owner's views. Today I do have a cough though, but then the teens have all had something (not Covid) for a couple of weeks now.

That's interesting about smaller shops because where I am, it's the smaller shops that have been the least dementory and treated me most like a human being.

@Taswama

Waitrose shoppers being ultra cautious would certainly support the class theory.

There definitely seems to be an effort to make it a class thing, and thereby I presume, socially engineer mask wearing.

I am a Waitrose / John Lewis shopper and don’t wear a mask, and still a minority. However I think it is my civic duty to continue showing my face and fighting back against such a useless measure.

I did notice an increase in mask wearers in the masks that actually do offer protection, so that message is getting out to the fearful / genuinely at risk.

Regarding small shops, they definitely feel more dementory in my small town. Many of them are displaying signs saying ‘by wearing a mask you are helping keep this small independent shop open’. Makes me want to stick my head through the door and ask them how exactly wearing a mask would do that?

Havel's grocer applied to the customer?

@ISaySteadyOn

Havel's grocer applied to the customer?

Wow! I was not familiar with Havel’s grocer but that is absolutely spot on!

“ Within the system, every individual is trapped within a dense network of the state's governing instruments…themselves legitimated by a flexible but comprehensive ideology, a 'secularized religion'…it is therefore necessary to see, argued Havel, that power relations…are best described as a labyrinth of influence, repression, fear and self-censorship which swallows up everyone within it, at the very least by rendering them silent, stultified and marked by some undesirable prejudices of the powerful…”

“Havel uses the example of a greengrocer who displays in his shop the sign Workers of the world, unite!. Since failure to display the sign could be seen as disloyalty, he displays it and the sign becomes not a symbol of his enthusiasm for the regime, but a symbol of both his submission to it and humiliation by it. Havel returns repeatedly to this motif to show the contradictions between the "intentions of life" and the "intentions of systems", i.e. between the individual and the state, in a totalitarian society.

An individual living within such a system must live a lie, to hide that which he truly believes and desires, and to do that which he must do to be left in peace and to survive. This is comparable to the classical tale of "The Emperor's New Clothes."

[T]hey must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.”

Borrowed from Wikipedia

I am glad to have introduced you to it. I think it is fascinating 🙂

Mmm, interesting.

It also says 'Havel proposes that the oppressed always contain "within themselves the power to remedy their own powerlessness…"

'Havel echoed Patočka's sentiment that no matter what the situation, individuals carry responsibility with them. Therefore it is possible to not allow oneself to be humiliated by superiors anymore, or intimidated by the secret police. ' (more Wikipedia)

Even as I read I can feel myself becoming aware of the potential cost of not submitting.

It reminds me of a story I heard on the radio years ago about a family in Germany during the war. They were listening to the BBC with their heads against the radio when their daughter and her playdate burst into the room. The adults' hearts leapt - this could mean denunciation and internment or possibly death. The visiting child stared and said 'my parents listen to the radio like that!' And thus two families quietly bonded.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that the disapproval from people who want us all staying in and wearing masks forever is anything like what either Havel's grocer or the German family faced.

But the underlying principle of human nature remains, with the tension between quietly fitting in and standing up against the mainstream, regardless of cost, large or small.

@amicissimma. I completely agree. The first time Mr Crazy went shopping, once the mask mandate had gone, he felt he should wear a mask ‘because everyone else is wearing one’.

Luckily I’m bolshy enough for both of us, a d after a while he saw a few more showing their faces and felt more confident. But it does demonstrate the power of peer pressure.

I think one can also quietly refuse to submit. I am doing my best to do that.

I went to Sainsbury's maskless today for only the 2ne time since the mandate was removed (have been in with masks on since then). Last time I wasn't feeling well, today it was just that I didn't want to! I would say that less people are wearing them now than before, I think it might actually be 50/50 now.

I went to the coop maskless and in mine, the masked were the minority. Even the security were maskless.

The tortoise is the cutest little thing.

Still supposed to mask up here in Wales. The only one way system is in the co-op. Everyone getting away with murder because of the tourism. May be a different story come the autumn sigh.

School starts tomorrow. It's the beginning of DD1 and DS' first full year at their new school. I am oddly nervous.

Good luck ISaySteadyOn - hoping everything's fine! We're past that stage now, but I remember it well.

I was a regular poster on here a while ago but lost the thread. I'm glad lots of you are still here.

I haven't worn a mask for anything except work since the mandate was removed. Sadly it isn't removed for work or I wouldn't be wearing one there either. We have covid at work again (despite the masks, hand washing, testing etc) so I feel like a bit of a sitting duck. It's only a matter of time before it comes for me!

DS starts back to school tomorrow. I feel oddly nervous about it (he doesn't). I hope it goes well for yours ISay I just can't believe it's the start of another school year.

The twins start in reception tomorrow their cousin in year 1. Seems like yesterday they were in prams ❤️

Mine has a job, also doesn't seem long since she was in a pram!

My 5 year old starts year 1 tomorrow, 4 year old has a meeting with her reception teacher tomorrow and my 11 year old starts secondary next week. Poor 11 year old has to do 2 LFT's next week, they seem to be on half days all of next week. To be fair to the secondary school they did do a summer school to aid with transition but I missed the enrolment as I am not that organised. Wish I was! Best of luck to all of the new starters

@justasking111

The twins start in reception tomorrow their cousin in year 1. Seems like yesterday they were in prams ❤️

Gosh, they were little when these threads started, I can't believe they're going to school!

On holiday in Wales. All the attractions websites still say booking required. Don't know if they're up to date or not, but having to be at places for a certain time is not my idea of a holiday, so like May, we're sticking to outdoors stuff again.

At least it's far more chilled out than Ireland. That was like time travelling to June 2020. Seriously depressing.

@BogRollBOGOF yep still booking only here for attractions. It's a a ballache all summer no spontaneity you booked way ahead after looking at the weather forecast ahead. We tended to stick to beaches and woodland. Eating out was booked up too.

The bonus is parents saved enough for a Disney cruise and a trip to center parcs at the end of the month. They've all earned a proper holiday this year

On an entirely different subject- goose- count! As I'm sure you all remember I've been counting the geese at the park regularly (cos during lockdown there were no other places to go with a baby and an older child) Last time there were 11, down from 95 earlier in the week. This week there were none, absolutely none. Where have they gone?
On the plus side the swans have come back but with only 2 babies, originally there were 4. Excitement level high here!

So we get to the children going back to school, next Tuesday, and dh and possibly all of us have covid!
He had positive lateral flow and now we have all had pcr and waiting on results.

Geese have buggered off some warmer 😂😂